Anand Mahindra's hilarious take on 'calibrated unlock' suggestion amuses netizens

Concerned about the financial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, Mahindra Group Chairman Anand Mahindra took to Twitter and suggested “calibrated and selective unlocking” in regions where coronavirus cases are declining.

The industrialist shared a graph by American think-tank Pew Research Center on May 28, showing how the pandemic has financially affected Indians. According to the analysis, the pandemic may have shrunk India’s middle-class population by 32 million and driven an additional 75 million people below the poverty line in 2020.

The Pew Research report, based on an analysis of World Bank data, was published in March even before the second wave of COVID-19 hit the country.

The 66-year-old business tycoon called the financial impact of the pandemic a “harsh reality of lives vs livelihood” and said that “more lives will be ruined if economic activities continue to be frozen” due to coronavirus-enforced lockdown even if the restrictions had saved people's lives.

“The harsh reality of lives vs. livelihoods. Lockdowns have saved lives, but more lives will ultimately be ruined if economic activities continue to be frozen. Those areas/regions which have shown a strong decline in new cases should look into a calibrated, selective unlocking,” Mahindra tweeted.

The harsh reality of lives vs. livelihoods. Lockdowns have saved lives, but more lives will ultimately be ruined if economic activities continue to be frozen. Those areas/regions which have shown a strong decline in new cases should look into a calibrated, selective unlocking pic.twitter.com/jPHvWNqZjG

Close

COVID-19 Vaccine

Frequently Asked Questions

View more

How does a vaccine work?

A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine.

How many types of vaccines are there?

There are broadly four types of vaccine — one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine.

What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind?

Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time.

View more

Show

Related stories

• 
  India sees single-day rise of 2,323 COVID-19 cases
• 
  BRICS bank to open India's regional office in GIFT City in Gujarat
• 
  Anand Mahindra takes a walk down memory lane, remembers old Mahindra ad

— anand mahindra (@anandmahindra) May 28, 2021

The next day, the businessman shared another image with a humorous take on his earlier tweet. Mahindra posted a picture of instructions written outside a swimming pool that read, "When pool re-opens, due to social distancing rules, there will be no water in lanes 1, 3 and 5."

He clarified that it was not what he meant when he called for a “calibrated relaxation of lockdown restrictions”.

This is NOT what I meant when I called for a calibrated relaxation of lockdown restrictions! pic.twitter.com/lKToZ4AqVa

— anand mahindra (@anandmahindra) May 29, 2021

The tweet immediately attracted netizens who started making funny comments. Within 24 hours, the post received over 4,700 ‘like’ and retweeted by over 290 social media users.

Download your money calendar for 2022-23 here and keep your dates with your moneybox, investments, taxes